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The word ‘ambient’ refers to the immediate surroundings of a thing and so ambient music is often conceptualised as a landscape, an environment – think of Brian Eno’s Ambient 4: On Land, or some of its many ancestors, records like Basil Kirchin’s Worlds Within Worlds, Alien Bog by Pauline Oliveros, Sun Ra’s Moon Dance, John Cage’s In a Landscape, Alvin Curran’s Songs and Views From the Magnetic Garden, Gail Laughton’s Pompeii 76 A.D., Les Baxter’s Sunken City, Richard Maxfield’s Pastoral Symphony, Winter Trees by Terry Jennings or Jon Gibson’s Visitations.

Our society almost seems to be involved in a “stamp out depression” campaign. Sometimes intervention is vital, but most of the time, we do not allow the normal depression that comes with grief to have its place.

As difficult as it is to endure, depression has elements that can be helpful in grief. It slows us down and allows us to take real stock of the loss. It makes us rebuild ourselves from the ground up. It clears the deck for growth. It takes us to a deeper place in our soul that we would not normally explore.